Port Lincoln, Australia – March 12

shellar door...get it?

Torrential rain first thing, later clear, 26 degrees


Docking is always a good thing, even if it is in industrialville - today we are docked. This means no tendering and makes having lunch in town a whole lot easier. Which is what we did.


Oysters are major industry in this part of Australia which was the focus of today’s tour. We drove about an

these are no one bite oysters

hour away from Port Lincoln to Coffin Bay, the heart of Oyster country. We listened for 45 minutes, as the owner of the Pure Coffin Bay Oysters described how oysters were grown, harvested and marketed, this included descriptions of a virus that hit the oysters a few years ago and how they came back from that. Of course, our visit culminated with us sampling the oysters…these suckers were big! We had a healthy slice of lemon to douse them in before sucking them back. Well, there really was no sucking these back…they

celebrating oysters

were a bit too big for that. They were very tasty and hit the spot for a mid morning snack…could have used a bit of wine to wash them down, but I’m not complaining.


On the way back to the port we visited Coffin Bay National Park. Here the landscape turned from tall trees to short brush to even shorter brush. We eventually made it to an ocean

emu family

side lookout. We wanted to take the stairs down to the beach, but they were almost entirely covered in sand. Once again, the coastline was very beautiful.


Emus and kangaroos are Australia’s 2 national animals…apparently because neither of them can walk backwards, which speaks to the country’s progress. We saw some of each of these as we made our way through the park. We are getting a bit used to seeing kangaroos, but emus…not yet…we’ve only seen a few. Here and there they were darting across the road and eventually we saw a whole family of them just

the beaches just keep getting better

standing on the side of the road - an adult (apparently the dad, as the dads raise the young) and 4 young emus.


We decided to have lunch on our own in town before walking back to the ship – what we were told was a 10 minute walk, turned out to be about 20 at our pace, I could see people not being pleased by this. Fortunately, it was a warm, but not hot day, so the walk back was

and better

pleasant, but quick. It was quick because we had to make it back for an afternoon tour.


Lunch was fish and chips (local whiting), pizza and a couple of pints in a small-town hotel/pub that was playing Australian soap operas on the TVs – I think this is what pubs at home will have to resort to when all sports are cancelled.

While we were eating, we found out that the ship would be heading to Africa (Seychelles, Mauritius, South

fishing boats

Africa). This also included 14 sea days (9 in a row at one point) Hmmm, after a lot of deliberation, we decided to carry on with the cruise.


The afternoon’s tour took us around the town of Port Lincoln…the most interesting part learning more about their fishing industry and seeing the boats…and a ton of sardines being transferred from the boat to

the pilot and a ton of jelly fish

containers to be sent to tuna farms for feed.

this is a first

BTW…this is my 500^th blog post!! My first blog post was in 2006 when we took a trip for Chris’ first sabbatical. It’s hard to believe it’s been 13 years! This blog is one of my prized possessions – the best souvenir I could ever have. One of my favourite things to do is reread the blog when our vacations are log past over and relive them.

flying sardines